An interesting story came from Ulrich, who was discussing Lulu, the much-maligned collaboration album Metallica did with Lou Reed. According to Lars, Lou Reed — who hardly seemed the type to give a damn what rock critics thought of his output — was “really hurt” when the album was roundly panned.

“It was hard for him because he was so proud of that record. He felt we had some sort of spiritual connection with him, and he kept talking about that, how we were finally the right band to back him up, how he’d been looking for decades for somebody with the power and so on. Then the record came out, and as you may know, some of the critics were not particularly … kind to this record … And he was, I mean, he was really hurt.”

Fans of both Reed and Metallica disagreed with Reed regarding the spirituality of this pairing, which — again, according to Lars — sent Lou into a spiral, which Ulrich had to mother him out of. Yup.

“We’re pretty thick-skinned. We’ve been through ups and downs for years, and if we like something we’d done and we enjoy the experience, that’s what matters to us. But I think he was really saddened by the response to [Lulu] and I felt … it was weird. The roles changed at the end where I became almost more maternal to him, and had to like sort of comfort him through this very difficult month when the record came out and it just got fucking slammed.”